Do you want to know how our final show went at the Viceroy in Grand Rapids? Well, with one day’s notice we got like a billion people to come out to that show. When I say “we” I mean “the show.” I am not responsible for that amazing fanbase. Anyway, it was a good welcome home, and it was a fabulous show. It was great doing that same crap one more time, and really getting it right this time. It’s a really good feeling going into a show knowing exactly what you’re going to do, and being so comfortable with the other performers that you know that it’s not going to be a problem to just improv. And let me say again: what an audience! We could have sacrificed a goat up there and they would have been into it. What support! Good work, everyone.

This will be the last tour update for Super Happy Funtime Burlesque for me this year. Unless we do an impromptu “help us pay for the damage we did to the RV rental” show in Grand Rapids.

I don’t think there were any mormons in the audience for the Salt Lake City show, because I don’t think they would be allowed to come to the show. I think there’s a rule in the book somewhere that says women should not be up higher than men.

Anyway, the small audience that came out to Burt’s Tiki Lounge was so awesome that we actually went to the trouble of putting some effort into giving them an adequate show. The venue was comfortable. The walls were covered in flyers and pictures. I feel like if I were hanging out in there I would never get bored. There are about a million band names on the wall.

This was the final show of the tour.

We did our best. This rag tag group of misfits was one of the best performance groups I’ve worked with. Moderately professional, and always giving 100% except when they were totally wasted drunk, these people have, over the past month, inspired me to aspire to their hard work and determination. I will split off and go back on my own, but I will never forget the memories I’ve had with this fantastic crew of artists. Memories like the time we all made stupid jokes for a really long time late at night, or the time when we ate. Some times were tough, like the time we were mad at each other, or the time when the RV broke everyday.

It was a relatively cool early evening in the Nevada desert. Our caravan, having carved through the mountains, now approached a glimmering cluster of shiny buildings in the middle of a vast wasteland of rock and the occasional crispy cactus. As we moved closer to the city, we saw that it was a hodgepodge of novelty architecture, decorated with sleazy graphic design.

We weaved our way through the city trying to locate the venue. We pulled into the driveway of an abandoned motel. Presumably, this is where we would perform. We passed broken windows, terrible smells and recent crime scenes, and we were seriously in fear for our lives. It seemed as though it would not be out of the realm of possibility that instead of putting on a show, we would all be murdered that night. We stopped just past the police tape. We were at the venue, and it was time to load in.

The venue was called either the Aruba Lounge or the Thunderbird Lounge. I was having trouble deciding what to call it, since both those names were on the building. There was a dress code, and the number one rule was “no plain t-shirts.” So, it was clear that this club would only let people in who gave free advertisements to large corporations.

But I was distracted for a long time by the establishment next door, which claimed to provide themed weddings and wedding receptions, including “007 weddings” and “vampire fly wedding.” The arbitrary use of the singular and plural of the word “wedding” made me think that perhaps there was some more specific meaning to those words than I could tell just by looking at them. In any case, I was staring at the LED sign out front for an hour waiting to see it repeat what I had thought was a “celtic wedding” with a picture of a bride and groom dressed in black and bleeding with flames behind them. I found out that what I thought I had read as “celtic” was actually “gothic.” That still doesn’t explain the bleeding or the flames.

We were afraid the Vegas audience would be unimpressed by our burlesque show, but it turns out that in Vegas there are very few burlesque performers, and they were impressed, and we had a great show.

The World Famous Whip-boy, a bull-whip artist, magician, comedian, stuntman, and probably a few other things, performed at our show, and allowed me and a few others to stay at his place, and he gave me his copy of My Life Outside the Ring by Hulk Hogan, ghost-written by some other guy, and Whip Boy autographed it for me. So now I have that book.

From Los Angeles, we forged northward toward our destination, which was in San Francisco. The venue was called DNA Lounge. The venue lived up to its name. It was very much a lounge. It was dark, with lights.

This was the show.

The sound people were the most professional I’ve seen, and the dressing room had a bathroom. They were nice to us, and we put on the best show of the whole tour for a very appreciative audience.

I don’t have the energy to write anything else. I’m too tired. San Francisco was good. Thanks.

No picture? That’s okay, you’ve all seen Los Angeles before. Remember the opening credits of the A-Team? The opening scene in Demolition Man?

As you know, our first show in L.A. county was cancelled, due to a series of freak tornados which destroyed the Capitol Records building, as well as a massive, unexplained supervolcano eruption.

So we chilled out for a couple of days until the Santa Monica show. Santa Monica you will recognize from the song by Everclear. Santa Monica is not part of the city of Los Angeles, even though there is no clear demarcation between the two. Santa Monica is unique in that it has blue and yellow street signs. One way you can tell you’re in Santa Monica and not Los Angeles is that the buses are on time.

We performed at a tiny bar called Trip. The audience was great. They could have seen any of hundreds of decent shows that night, and they picked getting drunk with us.

The mountains below us, the sky above us, the sun within our eyes, we travel on. The streets, paved with the blood of the wicked, carry our cursed caravan into the heart of the mouth of madness.

The theatre was called Orpheum.

The sound check was wonderful: It was quite efficient for the engineer to just have us all raise our hands at first, and then lower them if, as he adjusted the levels in our individual monitors, we were satisfied with what we could hear.

That would have been all we needed for a good show. But then the people showed up. It looked like a few hundred people, all there to see us perform, and they all paid to get in.

Why was the show so successful? I think there can be only one answer: 60 inch posters.

Tempe, AZ Our destination was Tempe, AZ, a city so named on account of the fact that you’re never there for very long. The city, which is just outside of Phoenix, lies in a horrible desert. Nothing grows in this desert but spikes and fire. In spite of it’s natural climate, Phoenix and the surrounding areas have been coated in a fine mist of chemicals that keep the human body cool.

We performed inside this cube.

We performed at a bar called 910 Live. It was dark and shiny in there, and the stage was sturdy and flat. 109 people watched the show (109 is an anagram for 910). We are now rich.

The city of Albuquerque is decorated with terracotta and turquoise-colored tiles. It has the atmosphere in the summer of a living room on a quiet evening. The streets are not full of the hustle and bustle of the big city, but are relaxed and easy. Every business has a rocket ship theme, including the venue at which we performed, the Launchpad.

The venue was described to me as “just a dive bar.” But it was way cleaner than your average dive bar. The floor was clean enough to touch. The lighting was well done. It smelled nice. The people were great. One of the guest burlesque dancers, Ann Gora, bought my poster.

This show didn’t have the biggest audience, but we played well and they liked it.

On our way to Bash Riprock’s, we stopped at a place called the Cowgirl Cafe. It was a typical country restaurant, with a very awesome mural on the side: a picture of two happy cowgirls smiling at me.

In the background is Camilla Cupcake, Marcella la Salsa and the Vivacious Miss Audacious

Lubbock, Texas is the birthplace of the original king of rock and roll, Buddy Holly. He changed his name from Holley to Holly for show business. 74 years later, Super Happy Funtime Burlesque arrived to put on a show for the citizens of this town, who still mourn the loss of their beloved leader.

The venue was called Bash Riprock’s. I have no idea why.

Though the audience was modestly sized, they were not modest with their approval of the show. They were very nice, and though the alcohol helped to make for some tense moments during the show, at the end, everyone was happy, smiling and hugging each other in congratulatory splendor.

The owner gave us shots.

Texas is truly like a different country, and we could feel that change the moment we crossed the border. The people in the audience were awesome. I met someone named Schmoo (sp?) and Peak (sp?). A couple named Aaron and Ashley, who were especially appreciative of the show, let us all sleep on their floor. Unfortunately, we had to leave their nicely air-conditioned home well before we had gotten a decent night’s sleep so we could get to Albuqwerty, New Mexico.